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Blurry Pictures in Finder Tile View

MacOS 12.3.1 - 16 inch MacBook Pro 2019.


When I open up a folder in Finder and make the view icon mode (500 x 500 size icons), the pictures display blurry. If I do a quick rotate (back and forth) or open them in Preview they are refreshed, display sharp, and stay that way.


I cannot seem to find a setting or preference where I can set it for the pictures to display sharp by default.


Am I missing something?




Posted on May 14, 2022 7:13 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on May 15, 2022 9:39 AM

Canuck888 wrote:
When I open up a folder in Finder and make the view icon mode (500 x 500 size icons), the pictures display blurry. If I do a quick rotate (back and forth) or open them in Preview they are refreshed, display sharp, and stay that way.

Those finder file icons are meant to be low-resolution versions of the full resolution images. They are normally so small that one would not notice the low resolution. When you open one of those images (Preview, or manipulate them in some way), the system treats it as if you are editing them and then reverts to high resolution. Doing this on every icon for every file would use up a huge amount of resources, however, so the system defaults to the low-res mode for the icons until there is an indication that the user is editing or changing the image, as you described. I don't think there is a way to change this behavior, you might consider submitting feedback to Apple with a suggestion. However, given that there could be thousands (or more) of such files in a folder on a Mac, I doubt the MacOS will present an option to make them all high resolution, as that could bring the system down due to the load of handling all those high resolution images at once.

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3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 15, 2022 9:39 AM in response to Canuck888

Canuck888 wrote:
When I open up a folder in Finder and make the view icon mode (500 x 500 size icons), the pictures display blurry. If I do a quick rotate (back and forth) or open them in Preview they are refreshed, display sharp, and stay that way.

Those finder file icons are meant to be low-resolution versions of the full resolution images. They are normally so small that one would not notice the low resolution. When you open one of those images (Preview, or manipulate them in some way), the system treats it as if you are editing them and then reverts to high resolution. Doing this on every icon for every file would use up a huge amount of resources, however, so the system defaults to the low-res mode for the icons until there is an indication that the user is editing or changing the image, as you described. I don't think there is a way to change this behavior, you might consider submitting feedback to Apple with a suggestion. However, given that there could be thousands (or more) of such files in a folder on a Mac, I doubt the MacOS will present an option to make them all high resolution, as that could bring the system down due to the load of handling all those high resolution images at once.

May 14, 2022 8:13 AM in response to Canuck888

Canuck888 wrote:

MacOS 12.3.1 - 16 inch MacBook Pro 2019.

When I open up a folder in Finder and make the view icon mode (500 x 500 size icons), the pictures display blurry. If I do a quick rotate (back and forth) or open them in Preview they are refreshed, display sharp, and stay that way.

I cannot seem to find a setting or preference where I can set it for the pictures to display sharp by default.

Am I missing something?




https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/3fb0ab69-2ff1-4377-bf21-53c24a303c7a



Hmmm.


I not sure what those screenshots are demonstrating/comparing...



Maybe back off 500 x 500 icon view and compare your results.


You can try relaunching the Finder on the fly, Control Option click on the Finder icon left side of the Dock>Relaunch




To trouble shoot further you can:


—SafeBoot How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support


Takes a bit longer to get to the login screen, does a quick disk repair before it fully boots up, and certain system caches get cleared and rebuilt, including dynamic loader cache, etc.

Login and test. Reboot as normal and test. Caches get rebuilt automatically.


In Safe mode third party system modifications and system accelerations are disabled, it removes malware, etc hampering smooth operation, however a reboot will put it back to normal mode.


This test will tell you if third party interference; extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.



—Test issue in another user (or guest user) account Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac - Apple Support

This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account. 



Uninstall all third party apps that are Cleaners/Optimizers/VPN/Anti-Virus

all known to cause issues on the macOS





Blurry Pictures in Finder Tile View

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